Unit OnePowerful WordsSection APre-reading Questions1. What do you think is the purpose of college education?2. Do you think college is an indispensable part of one’s education? Why?3. Have you heard of Harvard University? Why do you think it is so famous?Almost a household name, Harvard sets standards for top universities in the world. When its president Lawrence H. Summers speaks, his words become powerful in defining what it means to be an educated person today.2006 Harvard Commencement Address1The world that today’s Harvard’s graduates are entering is a profoundly different one than the world administrators like me, the faculty, and all but the most recent alumni of Harvard entered.2It is a world where opportunities have never been greater for those who know how to teach children to read, or those who know how to distribute financial risk; never greater for those who understand the cell and the pixel; never greater for those who can master, and navigate between, legal codes, faith traditions, computer platforms, and political viewpoints.3Scientific and technological advances are enabling us to comprehend the furthest reaches of the cosmos, the most basic constituents of matter, and the miracle of life. They offer the prospect of liberating people from drudgery on an unprecedented scale and of eliminating dreaded diseases.4Globalization is making the world smaller, faster and richer.One-third of human beings now live in places where the standards of living may increase 30 fold in a single human lifespan — a transformation that dwarfs what we call the Industrial Revolution. Still, 9/11, avian flu, Darfur, and Iran remind us that a smaller, faster world is not necessarily a safer world.5Our world is bursting with knowledge — but desperately in need of wisdom. Now, when sound bites are getting shorter, when instant messages crowd out essays, and when individual lives grow more frenzied, college graduates capable of deep reflection are what our world needs.6For all these reasons I believed — and I believe even more strongly today — in the unique and irreplaceable mission of universities.7Universities are where the wisdom we cannot afford to lose is preserved from generation to generation. Among all human institutions, universities can look beyond present norms to future possibilities, can look through current considerations to emergent opportunities.8And among universities, Harvard stands out. With its great tradition, its international reputation, its remarkable network of 300,000 alumni, its unmatched capacity to attract brilliant students and faculty, its scope for physical expansion in Allston and its formidable financial resources, Harvard has never had as much potential as it does now. Thanks to your generosity and the endowment’s strong performance, our resources have increased in just the last three years by nearly seven billion dollars.This is more than the total endowment of all but four other universities in the world.9So I say to you that our University today is at a turning point in its history. At such a moment, there is temptation to elevate comfort and consensus over progress and clear direction, but this would be a mistake.The University’s matchless resources —human, physical, financial —demand that we seize this moment with vision and boldness. To do otherwise would be a lost opportunity, not only for Harvard but also for humanity. We can spur great deeds that history will mark decades and even centuries from now. If Harvard can find the courage to change itself, it can change the world.10Science11Ponder this. Within the next 25 years, it is more likely than not that genomics will have led us towards a cure for many cancers; that stem cell research will transform treatment of diabetes, that basic research will make possible a vaccine for Alzheimer’s, and that we will have means to control AIDS and malaria.12Draw a circle with a five-mile radius from this point and you encompass the greatest concentration of biomedical talent on earth, and, almost as remarkable, the undeveloped urban real estate capable of making Harvard the world’s epicenter of biomedical progress.13Recognizing the potential, we have in the last five years created a Stem Cell Institute to fill the gap left by federal policy and so ensure that this research area —with its promise for diabetes, Parkinson’s and much else — is fully explored.14We have launched the Broad Institute for Genomics in collaboration with MIT, and embarked on planning and construction of more than 20 football fields’ worth of laboratory space to be devoted to interdisciplinary science in Cambridge and Allston. We have expressedour commitment to scientific education in new undergraduate courses that cut across scientific disciplines, and that focus, too, on the economic, social, and ethical aspects of scientific discovery. And we are on the verge of creating, at last, a new school for engineering and applied science.15All this represents a significant, and rapid, expansion of Harvard’s prior investment in science. But there is much more for Harvard to do.We owe to the next generation, and to our own, every effort we can make.16I look forward to the time when because of Harvard’s bold investments and its magnetic power, Boston is to this century what Florence was to the 15th— not the richest or most powerful, but the city that through its contribution to human thought shone the brightest light into the future.17I look forward to the lives we will save.18The World19America today misunderstands the world and is misunderstood in the world in ways without precedent since World War II. A great university like ours has a profoundly important role to play in promoting international understanding.20I know that my own professional path was set by the summer during graduate school I spent in Indonesia. There is no substitute for living abroad if one is to understand another country or even, I dare say, one’s own. The number of Harvard College students studying or working abroad has sharply increased over the past few years: now nearly two-thirds of a Harvard class —1,100 students —will work or study abroad this year.21I look forward to the day when Harvard sets a standard for future leaders of our country by assuring that all students have meaningful international experiences before they graduate.22There is much more to be done, too, in truly integrating Harvard with the world. Students from abroad coming here to study return home changed people, and those they meet here are changed by them.Remember a few years ago the rescue of a doomed Russian submarine crew? This rescue was only made possible by a contact between a Russian admiral and an American admiral — two who never would have communicated if they had not met in a Kennedy School joint military program.23And yet, we are still short of realizing the truly great curriculum our students are waiting for.24I believe that to realize this curriculum, the faculty of the college will need to put individual preferences behind larger priorities and to embrace new structures and norms of teaching and learning. To provide the closer student-faculty contact our students deserve, faculty will need to take a greater role in leading discussions, in responding to student writing, in advising student concentrators.25They will need to provide the broad introductions to large bodies of knowledge the students are right to demand. They will need to think with vision, and with generosity, across disciplinary borders and their particular fields to craft a compelling description of just what, in the 21st century, it means to be an educated person. I look forward to the day when Harvard is not just the greatest research university in the world, but is also recognized for providing the best undergraduate education inthe world —the day when once again what we do here in this yard defines the ideal of liberal education.26Conclusion27We owe it to those who come after us to become for this city, this region, this nation and this world a center of human improvement.28Our long preeminence must become a spur, not a bar, to our constant transformation.29I am honored to have served as your president during the early days of what I hope — and believe —will be Harvard’s greatest epoch. I have loved my work here, and I am sad to leave it. There was much more I wanted, felt inspired, to do. I know, as you do, that there are many within this community who have the wisdom, the love of Harvard, the spirit of service, and the energy that will be necessary to mount the collective efforts that this moment in history demands.30I bid you farewell with faith that even after 370 years, with the courage to change, Harvard’s greatest contributions lie in its future.(1372 words)New Words（黑正体表示一般要求，加★符号表示较高要求，加▲符号表示更高要求，黑斜体表示纲外词汇。